


Paint Me Better Off

by tryslora



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Artists, Awkward Sexual Situations, Coming Out, M/M, Magical Painting, Mpreg, Oblivious, Oblivious Harry, Pining, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 09:10:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco and Harry healed their differences five years ago, when Snape’s will forced them to work together for the good of Hogwarts. Now, when the Ministry requests that a magic portrait be painted of the Boy Who Ended the War, Draco is the only artist that Harry will trust to create it. But the process of having his portrait painted brings out the talkative side of Harry, and soon he is spilling secrets to his friend without any thought to the consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paint Me Better Off

**Author's Note:**

  * For [winterstorrm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterstorrm/gifts).



> **Content/Enticements:** angst, mpreg, pining, UST, oblivious!Harry, artist!Draco, off-screen portrait!Snape  
>  **Author's Notes:** So, dear winterstorrm, you said “angst, mpreg, pining, UST - not necessarily all at once!” and I apparently took that as a challenge. The angst is light, but I hope I’ve managed to work a little bit of everything into the story, somewhere. I loved your prompts, and I loved being able to write for you (I was so excited when I saw your name on my assignment!). Happy December, happy holidays, happy fest. :) 
> 
> Many many thanks to my alpha and beta readers for all their help; you are AMAZING, my dears. The title of the story comes from the lyrics for the song “Bent” by Matchbox Twenty. I do not own the world or characters of Harry Potter; I’m just writing.
> 
> [Jan 9 2016] This story has now been translated into German by Mika! You can [read it here](http://www.fanfiktion.de/s/546780b80003ac1a1a65034b/1/Paint-Me-Better-Off)! Thank you, Mika!

“I hate this.” Harry slumps in the chair, worrying at one of his fingernails. He never used to bite them, but lately they are all bitten to the quick. Just one more habit he’s developed after the war as he tries to deal with the stress of being the Boy Hero.

“I’d think you’d be used to the idea by now, Potter.” Draco’s tone is low and dry, muffled slightly by the paintbrush he holds in his teeth. “Just hold on one moment and we’ll get you settled.” He glances up, one eyebrow arched. “Not slumped like that. Sit up, stop mussing your robes.”

"If it weren't you, it'd be worse," Harry mutters and doesn’t move. "I don't like the publicity. You know that. And this... This _thing_. It's going to talk like me. It's going to act like me. For all intents and purposes it will _be_ me. It's creepy, Malfoy."

"It won't be you until _you_ are dead," Draco points out mildly. "Haven't you been listening to anything I've said over the last few years? For the moment it will simply be a remarkably lifelike portrait hanging in the Ministry. After your death it will begin to move and speak like any other portrait." He smiles thinly. "Our war hero Potter, looking over us as always."

Harry scowls. "You know how I feel about it."

"And I know that is why you are _here_ , rather than at Armsby’s, where the Ministry told you to go.”

“The Ministry can—”

Draco gestures with a dry paintbrush, and Harry goes silent. “Don’t say something you’d regret,” Draco chides. “They don’t own you, Potter. But you do serve a vital role in post-war wizarding society, and I do not think that you can deny that.”

“I feel used.” Harry’s mouth twists wryly. “I tried to be an Auror, but that didn’t work, not to mention that Ron’s better than I ever would’ve been. All I do is hang out and live my life and go out and talk to people when they ask me to. It’s like… they don’t care _who_ I am. All they care about is what I did, and as long as I keep reminding people that Voldemort’s truly dead this time, I can do anything. I get the feeling that I could dance on tables at the Ministry holiday party wearing only a pair of Hermione’s frilly knickers and all the news would say the next day is that I had a brilliant time and set a new fashion trend for men wearing women’s knickers.”

Draco coughs, and Harry blinks, startled by the sound. “You all right there, Malfoy?”

“That’s quite an image,” Draco manages to say. “You, dancing about in frilly knickers, I mean. Not what I need to be thinking while I’m painting this.” There’s a faint flush to his skin, and Harry feels warmth in his hands when he comes over and carefully adjusts how Harry is sitting, arranging him in the chair. When he’s done, Harry is no longer slumping, but at least he’s not posed in a stiff and uncomfortable manner, either. “There, do you think you can hold that for a few hours?”

“Can you talk to me and distract me while you paint?” Because Harry doesn’t want to just sit here doing nothing. He’s never been very good at doing nothing.

“It’ll actually help the process.” Draco settles himself behind the canvas again, and Harry watches with interest as he spills out specially prepared oils on the palette. The colors are bright and brilliant, nothing like what Harry thinks he’s wearing at all. But Draco told him once that colors aren’t what you think when you see them… that blending them is what creates the color you see, that a peach might actually be made up of yellows, reds, and greens. It doesn’t make sense to Harry, but he has to admit, Draco’s brilliant at what he does.

“It’s funny that we’re here now, isn’t it?” Harry murmurs. “That the only person that I trust to paint me like this is _you_ , of all people. Snape would probably find this hysterically funny.”

“And that is why his portrait is nowhere near this room,” Draco says dryly. “Do you really want his commentary? He had enough to say when he saw us in the Headmaster’s office regularly five years ago. You’d think a dead man would have less interest in the things he left behind, but no, he wanted daily updates on our progress.”

Harry relaxes slowly, letting the tension seep out as he remembers that time not long after the war. “He had an ulterior motive, I think. Either that, or he really did hate me and you were the best punishment he could think of if I managed to survive the war.”

Draco gives him a pointed look. “He obviously had faith in your survival or he wouldn’t have left his space warded so that only you and I together could enter. Can you imagine the trouble if they had not read his will?”

“It’s not like there aren’t other spaces in Hogwarts that are unreachable.” Harry shrugs, because it would just have become one more mystery of the school. There is no response, and he glances over at Draco who is staring back at him, lips pressed thinly together. “What?”

Draco shakes his head. “Nothing.” He points the tip of the brush at Harry. “Stay still now.”

“And silent?”

“Either way.”

But Harry hears the unsaid words, that it would be best if he didn’t say a thing. So he falls silent and stares at the wall behind Draco’s head. Even after five years, he has no idea how to tiptoe around Draco, how to avoid setting him off and angering him. They might be friends, but they still have their difficult moments. He risks a glance, but Draco’s brow is furrowed, his lips still thin and angry, and Harry’s positive it’s his fault. He’s just not sure _why_.

#

“Can I see how it looks so far?” Harry tries to walk around behind the canvas, but Draco stops him, hands on his shoulders, steering him towards the seat.

“Not yet,” Draco says curtly. “Sit. We need to get this finished.”

“What did I do?” Harry spreads his hands, sitting when nudged into place. He doesn’t argue when Draco takes his hand firmly, pushing it into the same place that it was last time. “You’re obviously arsed off at me, Draco, and I’ve no idea what I’ve done to deserve it this time. Did I talk too much during the last sitting? Was it talking about Snape?”

“He’s my godfather.” The words are short and sharp. A few more movements and Harry is pressed into position before Draco retreats behind the canvas. “And he did _not_ use me as a punishment for you.”

“No, he didn’t,” Harry admits. “I suspect he knew exactly how well we’d get on when there wasn’t a chasm of prejudice between us. And a war. Otherwise he might well have blown up a good chunk of Hogwarts with what he left behind.” He remembers those first days of trying to get through the wards that Snape had put around his office and laboratory, followed by months of cleaning. “He knew he wasn’t going to ever come back when he left that place,” he says quietly. “He knew Voldemort was going to kill him.”

Draco’s mouth thins. “He would have done anything for you, you know,” he says quietly.

“Because I reminded him of her.” Harry knows it had nothing to do with himself, not as he actually was. It was everything to do with his mother. “Can you imagine loving someone that much? So much that you’d die just to help some part of them, even long after they’re gone.”

Silence.

When Harry risks a glance over, Draco is absorbed by the painting, his tongue tip pink between his lips, grey eyes dark the way they always seem to be when he’s channeling this magic. There is a soft color to his cheeks, rose against the marble. It’s rather like watching a Greek statue paint a portrait. Although Greek statues are usually nude.

Harry feels warmth rise to his own cheeks at the thought of Draco standing there in nothing but a fig leaf, and he coughs to cover his discomfort. “Have you ever loved someone like that?” he asks quietly.

“Yes.” The one word is sharp and cold. “I believe I understand exactly what Severus Snape thought, and there is nothing I wouldn’t do for that person, or their progeny. And no, you do _not_ get to pry any further than that, Potter. Suffice to say, I sympathize with the plight of my godfather’s heart.”

“I didn’t…”

“You would pry,” Draco says dryly. “Or you would whisper to Granger and let her try to find her way through my defenses, and I’d appreciate if that weren’t to happen.”

“Parkinson?” Harry doesn’t think so—and he rather hopes Draco’s taste isn’t that bad—but he has to ask.

Draco sniffs. “Hardly. We were in nappies together. I remember her smashing bananas through her fingers and mixing them with pumpkin juice. Kissing her was rather like kissing my own sister, if I were to have one. But I do love her, in a comfortable way. I have no desire for more from that relationship, however.”

Harry nods, the movement shallow as he tries not to disturb Draco’s art. It’s actually more than he expected for an answer, and he goes silent to mull it over then. There were rumours once about Draco and the younger Greengrass girl, but she seems settled well enough now with Theodore Nott. Which might be heartbreaking. “It isn’t because of the Mark—”

Draco sets the paintbrush down with an audible tiny thunk. “No, Potter, I have not been denied my true love because of the bloody Mark. Nor do I wish to discuss it. So let’s just move on to another topic of discussion. Perhaps your past affair with the youngest Weasley?”

Harry opens his mouth, then closes it quickly. “Okay, I deserve that. But it’s not what you think. I’m the one who broke up with her.”

“You told me she broke your heart.” Draco’s fingers drift over the paintbrush, but he doesn’t lift it again.

“We hardly knew each other then, and I didn’t feel like going into details.” Harry shrugs. “We’d been working on Snape’s office for what… a few months at that point? We weren’t exactly intimate.”

“We aren’t intimate now.”

Harry’s mind flashes back to the image of Draco as a Greek statue, filling in the details Harry can’t possibly know. He fights the flush that wants to stain his cheeks. “No. Er. No. We’re not. But we’re friends.”

“Why haven’t you said anything before now?” Draco finally lifts the paintbrush again, dipping it carefully in the paint on his palette before applying it to the canvas.

“It just hasn’t come up.” Harry sucks in a breath, because this is… “It’s not easy,” he admits. “It’s private. And yes, we’re friends, but bloody hell, I haven’t even told Ron the real reason why we broke it off. Ginny let everyone think it was all her changing her mind, and I’m grateful for that. But every once in a while, I wonder if I’m wrong anyway. If maybe I should have just gone on with what I was doing and married Ginny and had children. Because I _want_ children, Draco. I’ve always wanted a family, since the one I had growing up was complete rot.”

“Just say it, Potter.”

“I’m gay.” And there it is, lying on the floor between them, and Harry’s just waiting for the snort of pureblood derision. “Which means—”

“I’m aware of the word, Potter.” Draco’s tone is dry. “Am I supposed to be in shock? Perhaps horrified? You might be surprised how common it is in the wizarding world.”

“This is a society that has killed people for not having magic. I can’t really expect them to be better than Muggles about _this_ , can I?”

“Actually, yes.” Draco dabs at something on the canvas. “Magic can adjust for numerous issues that may arise in Muggle society. We are better at handling the idiosyncrasies of sexuality. So, you prefer men. And Ginevra, while boyish, simply isn’t a _man_.”

“Exactly. So. When we tried to make our relationship work, it just… didn’t.” Harry doesn’t mention the fighting—most of which he was just as at fault for as Ginny. It wasn’t easy trying to figure himself out, and her lack of patience, and her anger at him for leading her on, didn’t make him think what he was would go over well when he finally came out. “She told me Ron would be angry if he knew.”

“Because you dated her for two years, then dumped her for a bloke. He’s protective of his only sister. It’ll go better if you tell him now, since she seems happy with Thomas.” Draco quirks one eyebrow. “How _is_ that going? Finnigan always seemed the jealous sort, to me.”

“Dean’s asked her to marry him. Seamus’ll be the best man at their wedding, and Ginny and Lavender are getting along now, which is good, since the four of them seem to be together all the time. I think Seamus said Lavender’s pregnant.”

“What a happy little Gryffindor extended family.” Draco pauses to arch one eyebrow. “No wonder you’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.” Harry scowls. “I just… I want to have kids someday. That’s all.”

“So? Have kids.”

Harry wants to pinch the bridge of his nose. He wants to put his head in his hands, he wants to scream with frustration. “You aren’t listening to a word I’m saying, are you?” he snaps irritably, but Draco only gives him a mild look over the edge of the canvas.

“Why should I, when you aren’t listening to me?” he replies. “Perhaps we should stop discussing this. It is giving your skin an unhealthy flush, and that’s throwing off my sense of colour. Tell me something else. Quidditch, perhaps?”

Harry sucks in a tight breath. Quidditch. He can talk about something completely innocuous and avoid discussions of Ginny and the family he’ll never have, or Draco looking like a marble statue, or anything else uncomfortable. “Ron dragged me to a Cannons game,” he offers.

Draco smiles thinly. “Good. Tell me about that.”

It isn’t exciting, but it passes the time, and when Harry finally runs out of things to say, Draco lets him be until the only sound in the room is the soft slide of the brush against the canvas. Harry lets his mind drift, almost asleep, because anything is easier than thinking.

#

Harry is late for the third sitting, rushing in and shrugging out of his cloak in one motion. His robes are mussed, and he tries to rub a brightly coloured splotch away before Draco can see it, only to be halted by a hand gripping his wrist. Draco’s wand touches the stain and the murmured spell makes the colour disappear while Harry flushes.

“You always forget you’re a wizard,” Draco chides gently.

“I was brought up as a Muggle first,” Harry reminds him, brushing dust from his robes. “Sorry about the mess. I was with Teddy, and time got away from me. I’d thought that I’d save time by changing before I had my time with him, but that just means I look like a wreck now. Hopefully you can paint around it.”

“If I can’t imagine what your robes look like clean, then I’m a terrible hack.” Draco rolls his eyes. “Better yet, take them off. I’ll have Diggly launder them properly, and we’ll simply get started later. Another half hour won’t matter now, I’m certain.” When Harry hesitates, both pale eyebrows arch. “You _are_ wearing something beneath your robes, are you not, Potter? Given your background, I wouldn’t think you’d adopt wizarding habits so quickly.”

He’s heard about it before, that wizards don’t bother with anything under their robes. Hell, he’s even seen it, when Ron was so shocked that Harry wore a full outfit beneath his robes. But he tries not to _think_ about it where his friends are concerned. Yet, as soon as Draco points it out, Harry _has_ to ask, “What about you? Are you wearing anything more than pants beneath your robes?”

The eyebrows stay arched as Draco’s mouth twists into a smirk. “That’s private information, Potter, and unless you’re intending to get me _out_ of my robes, it’s something you’ll just have to imagine for yourself. No?” Draco answers the implied question on Harry’s behalf when Harry simply stands there, speechless. “Give me your robes. I’ll take care of getting them cleaned.”

Harry shucks the robes quickly, leaving himself in a pair of old, comfortable denims and a faded t-shirt. He crosses his arms over the logo of a Muggle band from twenty years past and mutters, “I didn’t think anyone would be seeing anything more than the robes.”

“My mother always reminded me that I was a Malfoy from the skin out, and every layer should reflect that, whether it is the impeccable quality of my pants or a custom tailored set of robes.” Draco’s gaze drops, sliding over Harry until he flushes under the regard. “In some strange way, you look exactly as I’d imagine you would look. Comfortable.”

“You’ve seen me in Muggle clothes before.” Harry avoids robes when he can, preferring the comfort of the clothes he grew up with.

“You usually make the attempt to look more put together,” Draco admits. “This is rather what I imagine you look like at home, when you’re alone.” He sniffs slightly. “Not that I spend time thinking what you do alone.”

Harry’s not sure how to take that, his mouth opening and closing without being able to figure out what to say. “I…”

“Never mind. I have something for you.” Draco picks a book up from the side table and hands it to Harry. “I think you’ll want to read that, although it will do you little good should you decide to further dilute the Potter blood and marry a Muggle.”

_So You’re Ready for a Sprog: The Gay Wizard’s Guide to Magical Procreation_

“Um.” All of the words in the title make sense to Harry, but he’s having difficulty putting them into context.

“When the proper magic is applied, wizards can carry children, Potter.” Draco’s smile is thin. “As I said, magic allows us to sidestep many of the obstacles Muggles face in same gender relationships. There is, of course, a similar guide for witches. But I must advise that it works best when both members of the relationship have fairly strong magic. It is not advised to try to procreate with a Muggle man.”

Harry sits down quickly on the edge of the table, the book cradled in his lap. “Men can… men can have children? Together? I could have a child?”

“If you have a male partner willing to undergo the process with you, yes. Stop acting as if you’re bewildered by the wonders of the magical world, Potter. Surely, by now, you’ve become accustomed to it.” Draco moves to the cabinets and begins fussing with his paints. It looks to Harry as if he already took them out, likely long before Harry arrived, yet Draco is managing to find _something_ that needs arranging and fixing.

“And if I don’t have a partner?” Because Harry can’t imagine getting involved with someone right now. He’s tried a few times, but nothing’s worked out, not yet. Neither Muggle nor wizard.

“It does still take two parents to produce a child,” Draco says dryly. “Magic cannot create something out of nothing. That is one of the standard tenets of transfiguration, and yes, it applies to magical biology as well.”

“That isn’t what I meant.” Harry fiddles with the book in his lap. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly _dating_ right now, and I don’t know if I _want_ to get involved with anyone. It’s complicated.”

“I see.” Draco sets down his palette with a small thunk. “Well, there is a certain amount of the process which requires that both parents be present, due to the requirements of the magic, but I believe once the child is born the two may part ways, if you so desire. So you would need to find a co-parent willing to put up with you for approximately nine months before you could push him out.”

“What if I…”

Draco gives him a look over the edge of the canvas. “One, it doesn’t matter _who_ carries the child. Both parents must be present for the extent of the pregnancy. Two, while you are rife with chaotic magical energy, you are hardly pure of blood, and the more pure one is, the more likely he will be able to safely carry a child to term. Were you to find yourself partnered with another half-blood, you would be the preferred candidate to carry, however, I would recommend that you find a pureblood in order to be safe.”

Harry laughs, because Draco makes it sound so simple. As if it is some kind of business arrangement rather than a complicated process of finding someone who will love a man and not the legend of a hero. “Just like that,” he says, shaking his head. “Just like that, run out and find a pureblood to carry my child. And the worst of it is, if the Prophet ran an article saying I was bent as a corkscrew and looking for a bloke to get up the duff, I’d probably have a dozen offers within the first hour after it was dropped onto breakfast tables. If not more.”

“You’re very certain of yourself.”

“I’m certain that everyone loves a hero,” Harry says dryly. He opens the book, curious how detailed it is, and wondering if Draco has read it, or if it is simply a process that everyone born to the wizarding world already knows. He flips a few pages, feeling the flush as he finds the chapter on the proper methodology of conception, then closes it quickly. “Perhaps we ought to see if Diggly is done cleaning my robes.”

Harry can’t read what lies behind Draco’s carefully blank expression when he replies, “Yes, perhaps we should.”

“Thank you,” Harry says quietly, lifting the book slightly. “You’ve gone above and beyond the duties of friendship. It’s not every bloke willing to get involved in his mate’s odd sex life.”

“We’re friends, Potter,” Draco says, voice tight. “I’d like to see you happy.”

#

“Draco!” Teddy pushes away from Harry and ploughs through the tower they just finished building, sending blocks flying as he races for the fireplace. Draco barely manages to stand up straight after exiting the Floo before Teddy wraps his arms around his legs and holds on.

“I didn’t know you were coming by.” Harry unfolds himself from the floor and brushes dirt from his jeans. “I would have had Kreacher make something better than peanut butter sandwiches, with crisps and biscuits.” He filters through the appointments that he has for the week, frowning. “Did I say I’d come today for a sitting? Am I late again? I really ought to get a diary and start writing everything down. Hermione and Ginny have both been on about me doing that, but I keep forgetting. The big events no one will let me forget, so why write them down?”

“You haven’t forgotten anything, Potter.” Draco manages to unwind Teddy’s arms and slowly sinks down to kneel on the floor, opening his arms wide and embracing his cousin. “Hello, Teddy. I see you’re playing with Uncle Harry today.”

It’s so rare to hear his given name from Draco’s lips. It gives him pause every time, and he goes over it again, letting it roll through his mind. There is a softer sound to it, rather than the guttural double-T in the middle of _Potter_. It rolls lightly, loosely, and Draco almost smiles when he says it.

Harry likes it, but they’ve always been Malfoy and Potter, and he has no idea how to change that so he lets it go.

“Andromeda needed some time today and I can never say no to Teddy,” Harry admits. “I should have thought to call you and see if you wanted to join us. We were considering going out to the park. Teddy likes to play with the Muggle children.”

“I don’t call them Muggles,” Teddy says, very seriously. “They’re my friends.”

“I should like to join you, if you don’t mind.” Draco glances up at Harry and quirks one eyebrow. “However, I might like to borrow something to wear. My robes would be singularly out of place in a Muggle park.”

Which answers the question of exactly how traditional Draco is beneath those robes. Harry feels heat warm his cheeks abruptly. “Er. Yes. Of course.” It doesn’t help that he’s thinking of picking out his own clothing to put on Draco’s body, and when did he become so obsessed with this idea? It had to have been the Greek statue. Marble. Cold hard marble, waiting to be warmed by the touch of a hand... Harry shakes his head as if he could dislodge the images bombarding him. “Teddy, do you think you could clean up your toys here, while I take your cousin Draco upstairs and find him something that might fit?”

Teddy agrees, and Harry finds himself leading Draco up the stairs, which he has done a hundred times before in the years since the war. He can remember stumbling up these stairs together after too much to drink, leaving Draco in the guest room down the hall while he made his way to his own room to pass out on his bed. He remembers Draco going through his formal robes, discarding those he considered too pedestrian and ensuring that Harry would be perfectly turned out for any event that might happen.

This feels different somehow.

He points to his closet and his armoire. “Go ahead, take anything you like. You can transfigure it, if you need to make it fit temporarily. I doubt anything of mine will fit you perfectly.” They have different builds of course. “I’ll just go downstairs while you change.”

“Wait, Potter.” Draco turns, one hand out before Harry can leave. “Sit down. There is something I’d like to talk to you about, and it would best without small ears listening.”

Harry turns back, not liking the serious tone. “Is this about the portrait? Is there a problem?”

Grey eyes look up to the ceiling as Draco sighs. “No, there is not a problem with the portrait. Would you please just sit down?”

Harry perches on the edge of the bed, avoiding sitting back too comfortably. “You’d best look through things while you speak. It won’t be long before Teddy comes looking for us.”

It seems almost as if Draco is relieved to turn his back and start pawing through the armoire. He sticks his head into it, looking through Harry’s shirts, and it muffles his voice when he speaks. “I have an offer to make.”

“An offer?” Harry suspects he is supposed to guess what it might be, or perhaps Draco expects him to know, as the pause seems to wait for more of an answer than he has to give. “What sort of an offer?”

“The one you’ve been wanting.” Draco turns back, a shirt in his hand, his fingers long and white and tight against the crumpled fabric. “You wish for someone to carry your child. I’m offering to do so.”

Harry is on his feet before Draco finishes his sentence. “You can’t.”

Draco pulls back, the shirt held in front of his chest, and his voice goes cold. “I understand that there is no _interest_ between us, Potter. It is an offer to carry your child, and has no further expectations. I do not wish for us to become regular lovers, nor do I pray for your invitation to move in aside from the time where we will need to cohabit in order to ensure the well-being of your child and myself. I am simply reminding you that I have an impeccable bloodline—idiocy during the wars aside—and we are already quite good friends, so spending more time together should not be a hardship. Nor do I worship the ground you walk on, so you needn’t fear that I might somehow become attached.”

“It’s not that.” Harry backpedals, trying to dig himself out of the hole he has so quickly fallen into. “I’ve actually been reading that book, and it’s dangerous. Not to mention that we have to—well, we’d have to actually have sex. And you’re straight.”

One corner of Draco’s mouth tilts up. “Hardly, Potter. I simply felt no need to mire myself in angst over the issue of sexuality, nor did it occur to me until recently that you might have mistaken mine because you are lost in Muggle morality. I am, as you so eloquently put it, bent as a corkscrew.”

“Oh.” Harry thinks back over the last five years, tries to remember the details of Draco’s personal life. “But you haven’t…”

“I haven’t dated anyone.” Draco shrugs one shoulder. “There has been little opportunity, and as I do believe I have said, my heart is trapped elsewhere. Why should I dangle after one person, when I cannot give them what they deserve? I assumed that eventually I should make a match, marry, and produce heirs for the Malfoy house. This allows that heir to be born without the bonds of marriage, and without the need for emotional entanglement.”

Theodore Nott? Blaise Zabini? Harry tries to think through the various pureblood men he has known over the years, the ones he has seen as friends of Draco. But none of them seem to be the sort that Draco would pine after so desperately that he is unwilling to even have a physical relationship with someone else.

He shakes his head, pushes his fingers through the thick strands of his hair. “I… I need to think about this. It would change everything between us. Particularly if you consider the child your heir as well as mine.”

Draco turns his back and tugs his robes over his head. He pulls the shirt on and smoothes it down, and when he turns back—clad only in the t-shirt and his pants—Harry sees that it is the same Muggle band t-shirt that he wore to his third sitting.

“There are jeans in the drawer.” He points, and he tries not to stare while Draco watches him, lips pressed together.

“We would find a way to bring the child up in both houses, in some manner,” Draco finally says quietly as he turns away. “It would be a Potter first. There is nothing of the Malfoy heritage that it would need, other than the coffers when it comes of age. I should like to teach it to paint someday, however. That is a tradition I should enjoy passing on to someone of a new generation.”

So the child would be _his_. Harry’s child. It would be a Malfoy in name only, and monetarily, but it would be a Potter first and foremost.

Something untwists in his gut, relaxing at the idea that he can do this, he can have the child and the family that he has wanted. “You’d be involved,” Harry says quietly. “You’re one of my best friends, after all. I see you more days than not. And of course I’d want you to teach our child to paint.”

Draco pushes a drawer closed and turns, jeans in his hands. He lays them on the bed and touches his wand to them so that they shift and change to his body shape. “Is that a yes, then?”

“I think it is,” Harry admits. He can’t think past the way his stomach is roiling now, twisting in nerves and anticipation. “I think it is.”

“ _Uncle Harry! Cousin Draco!_ ” Teddy’s voice rises shrill and sharp from the bottom of the stairs. “Are we going to the park?”

“Finish getting dressed.” Harry takes two quick steps, pausing at the door. “I’ll take care of Teddy until you come down. And Draco?”

He makes a conscious effort to use Draco’s given name and it’s worth it for the surprise written in his features and both pale eyebrows arch. “Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Tension bleeds out, Draco’s mouth twisting from a thin-lipped smirk into a smile as he nods. “You’re welcome.”

#

Harry can’t stop thinking about it. 

When he arrives for his fourth session, he wants to burst out with questions, but Draco is all business, getting him seated and tucking his robes just so. Once Harry is set, Draco retreats behind the easel and makes a soft _hmm_ noise as he picks up his brush. When Harry tries to speak, Draco makes only non-committal noises in response, obviously lost in the fugue of his art.

Harry doesn’t know whether to be impressed or offended.

The problem is, silence gives his mind too much space to run, and he finally blurts, “I haven’t told anyone.”

“Told anyone _what_ , Potter?”

And just like that, Harry wonders if he imagined the entire conversation. If, perhaps, he is so desperate for a family and for normalcy that he dreamed up a scenario where Draco Malfoy would willingly offer his body up for nine months of drastic wizardry, solely so Harry Potter could have a child. He swallows, and says nothing.

Draco lowers the brush and looks over the edge of the easel. “ _What_ , Potter?”

“Your offer,” Harry says tightly. “I didn’t tell anyone, in case you wanted a chance to change your mind.”

Draco snorts. “I wasn’t planning on changing my mind. A Malfoy never reneges on a promise. We shall have to hammer out some details, of course. Timing is your choice as long as it suits my schedule. And the legal issues of naming and inheritance, but those can be settled once I am pregnant and particularly once we have a gender for the child, and of course a name. It is far easier to do the documents once with the correct information than it will be to redo them after the child is born.”

“So you’re really going to do this?” Harry’s heart races with the thought. He’s spent the last several days reading, and then _re_ -reading, the book Draco had loaned him. He is well-versed in the spell-casting required, as well as the preferred position, timing, and ceremony around it. “There’s a potion you’ll need.”

“It’s in my nightstand drawer.” His tone is offhand, as if it doesn’t matter, when it means _everything_ to Harry. “And yes, Potter, we are really going to do this. Although if you continue to ask I might refuse on the grounds that if you are that much of an idiot, you do not deserve a child of Malfoy blood.”

“Tonight,” Harry says quickly. “If you’ve already got the potion, I’ve memorized the spellwork. We could get started tonight.”

Draco lowers the brush slowly and places a sealing spell over the palette. “Tonight? Is it that you are that excited about starting a family, or that anxious to get an unpleasant task over with? You are aware that there is no other way for impregnation to occur—”

“Other than traditional sex, preferably with the penetrating male facing the receptive male, with his hips tilted upwards in order to ensure the preferred path for the semen.” Harry flushes as he quotes the book verbatim. “Yes, I can actually study when I’m interested in the material. I’m also aware that the best time for impregnation to occur is twenty to thirty minutes after ingestion of the potion, and that repeated attempts do not make a pregnancy more likely. In fact, repeating the same series of potion and intercourse again within a week _decreases_ a man’s chances of magically creating a womb and having a fetus implant. They recommend not trying more than once per month, although they were certain to say that repeated sexual intercourse without the potion will not endanger a child, as long as it does not occur within twenty-four hours after ingesting the potion.”

“I see.” Draco rubs his hands on the smock he wears over his robes, then carefully unties the smock and slips it off, tossing it over a nearby hook. “If you’re ready then, I can’t see any reason to waste an evening. Yes, Potter, you may attempt to get me pregnant tonight.”

He sounds so matter-of-fact, in a way that twists in Harry’s gut and makes him rethink it all over again.

This is what he wants.

A child.

A family.

And Draco is offering it freely, giving him the chance to have something he might not otherwise ever have.

Harry nods and gestures at the door. “Lead the way.”

#

When Harry leaves the room, Draco is sitting on the edge of the bed, the empty potion bottle in his hand. He still has his robes on, and he sends Harry into the en suite bathroom to clean up and undress, however it makes him most comfortable. It gives Harry a moment to gain his composure, leaning on the edge of the sink, thinking about what’s going to happen tonight.

He’s going to fuck Draco Malfoy.

He groans softly as blood flows to his prick at the idea of it, at the mental image of Draco stretched out on the bed, arching under him. Harry’s hardly a virgin, and he assumes Draco’s had his share of experience, but they’ve certainly never been with each other. Harry hadn’t even realized Draco was bent until recently. It had just never occurred to him to think about it.

Now that he’s started thinking about it, the idea of it consumes him. He strips off quickly, toeing off his socks and nudging them near his shoes, leaving the rest of his clothes in a not-quite-neat pile by the sink. He takes his prick in hand, already long and hard, and strokes it once while he thinks about what Draco might look like as he lies back on the bed, his legs spread, hole exposed.

 _Fuck_.

Harry pushes the door open, speaking before he even steps through. “I don’t want this to fuck with our friendship,” he says bluntly. “We need to still be friends after this is done.”

“If I’m not likely to be emotionally scarred by you waving your prick about, then I’m not likely to run from our friendship either,” Draco says dryly. “I have _offered_ , Potter. How many times are you going to ask if I’m certain?”

“As many as it takes for me to believe you.” Harry’s voice is low, the words truer than he meant to say. “You are offering me _so much_ , and I just… I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”

“Then you’d best make this one brilliant shag to make up for it.” Draco raises one eyebrow. “We’ve still got ten minutes before you can expect best results, so perhaps you ought to spend your time pleasing me.”

Harry has to laugh, because even naked, Draco is a demanding prat. He is lying back on his bed, pale skin against deep blue linens, silvered scars snaking across his abdomen. Harry feels those scars like a fresh punch to his own gut, and instead of doing anything else, he sits carefully on the bed, his fingers skating over the silver lines. “I was an ass,” he says quietly.

“As was I.” Draco’s voice has drawn as tight as the muscles of his stomach. “We tried to kill each other Potter, but in the end, we did manage to save each other’s lives. We have made our amends in recent years, thanks in part to Snape’s interference. Do you think that we could, perhaps, get on with the fucking rather than rehashing old memories?”

Harry lets his hand go flat, his skin seeming darker against the pale flesh. He’s not sure if it’s that Draco doesn’t want to remember, or that he wants to rush through this. He can’t blame Draco for wanting to rush; it’s not as if they are more than friends. But Harry can’t shake the thought that this is going to irrevocably change their friendship. It will be different after this. They are going to share a bed, yes, but if all goes as planned, they will also be sharing a life for nine months, and they will be linked through the blood of their child after.

His hand slides down, slipping between the scars to find where Draco’s prick lies, half-hard and waiting. Harry curls his hand around the soft flesh, stroking it, curious what it will be like when it is at full length. He tries not to think about the fact that he is fucking _Draco_ , tries to make it that it is only an anonymous pick up, but that’s impossible. He knows exactly whose prick this is, and who makes that soft, frustrated sound while he strokes from root to tip, pulling until the head peeks out from the foreskin, wanking him slowly.

“Get on with it,” Draco mutters.

“Eight minutes until I need to fuck you,” Harry responds quietly. “I want to make this more than good. I want to make it bloody well brilliant.” Draco is giving him so much; he can at least give him this much in return.

Harry slides to the end of the bed and settles between Draco’s legs. He pushes a pillow under his hips, then nudges at him until Draco bends his legs, letting his knees fall wide to bare himself to Harry’s view. Harry noses at his cock, now slender and long and hard, licking behind the base of it, then stroking along the vein with his tongue. When he captures the head, Draco makes a sound, hips arching to fuck into Harry’s mouth in shallow motion.

He doesn’t want this to be over quickly, so he takes it slow, letting Draco move but pulling back when his hips arch too high, not letting him reach completion. Draco whines his frustration, tangles a hand in Harry’s hair, muttering when Harry tugs himself away.

“Give me the tin.” Harry gestures and Draco manages to reach to the bed table, picking up the small, open tin that lies there. It has a scent like mint, which makes Harry smile, and he wonders if it will tingle as well. He’s fairly certain that it is a specially prepared formula, designed not to interfere with impregnation, because Draco has thought of everything.

He scoops out a fingerfull of it, and rubs it against the palm of his hand to warm it before he uses it to slowly circle Draco’s hole. He coats him liberally before he presses inside, gently stroking to coat him from the inside out as well. He adds more lubrication until one finger slips in easily, then he takes still more and switches to two fingers. He twists as Draco bucks beneath him, prick leaking a drop of liquid that sticks to his belly, leaving a trail.

“Fuck, Potter, do you do this to every bloke you’re with?” Draco whimpers. “Just… fuck me already. It’s close enough. I want you in my ass already, because this is fucking torture.”

Harry grins. “If we’re only going to do this once, I want it to be something we’ll both remember.”

Draco’s hand snakes out, seeker-fast, and he grips Harry’s hair, pulling him so he can look him in the eye. “I am never going to forget,” he says slowly. “I am going to remember the night you fucked me for the rest of our lives, and I will look at our child and remember then, too, that we _did_ that. Us. Together.”

Those words shiver through Harry, biting deep with their intensity, and he knows that no matter what, he will never forget either. The child will be a reminder, yes, but this… this one amazing time… this will be something he will dream of.

As he fits himself to Draco, slides in as if they were made to be together, tears prick the corners of his eyes. He feels Draco’s hand on his cheeks, feels his anchoring touch, and Draco’s mouth slots over his with a soft, pained groan.

Harry kisses like he might swallow Draco whole, like he is the only anchor to keep him from being tossed out to sea in this storm of rising passion. He can’t _not_ move now, can’t think about it being _good_ or _perfect_. He just has to thrust, hips starting to move without conscious thought. With every push, Draco rises to meet him, whimpering while Harry presses deep, and he wonders how much of it is the potion affecting him. If Draco wants him so much because the potion _makes_ him want to be filled.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. Harry will take everything that Draco has offered, every touch that he has to give, and he will give what little he can in return.

When he feels himself growing close, he pulls back from the kiss, surging over Draco, one hand braced against the mattress, the other reaching to stroke Draco’s prick. It is slippery from pre-come, and Harry strokes almost roughly, desperate for Draco to find his own release in this.

A hand touches his cheek, and Harry stares down to find Draco watching him. Silver eyes meet green, unblinking as they fuck, as Harry’s hand rolls over the tip and he can see and feel every twitch of Draco’s body.

Draco’s hand flattens against Harry’s cheek and he whispers _Harry_ right before his eyes close and his body bows, his orgasm taking over as he shoots white streams over his own chest. The tight clench of his ass is more than Harry can handle and he stiffens, emptying himself into Draco with a groan.

They lie there for a long moment, sticky and sweaty, before Draco reaches up to pull Harry down into one more, slow, lingering kiss.

“I’m not going to forget, Potter,” he murmurs.

And just like that, they are back to normal, strangely joined and intimate, but at the same time, just friends.

Harry feels lost in the aftermath, and has no idea what to say in return.

They stay there for several minutes, until Draco twitches. “That should be long enough for it to take,” he says quietly, and Harry takes the hint and pulls out, rolling to one side.

“We’re not going to let this be awkward, right?” he asks.

Draco snorts softly. “It’s only going to be awkward if you make it awkward, Potter. But you might want to ready your story for your friends soon. After all, it will soon become impossible to hide the fact that you are bent.”

Harry winces. In his impatience, he hadn’t thought it through. There will be consequences. So many consequences, and all of a sudden they loom bright and heavy over his head. He sits up, knees bent and head in his hands. It is the touch of Draco’s fingers at the small of his back that drags him back to earth and lets him breathe again.

“You’re not doing this alone,” Draco reminds him. “In fact, it would be impossible to do this alone. So don’t act like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders by yourself.”

“I shouldn’t have made you carry my troubles, either,” Harry says quietly. “But thank you. I just… thank you.”

He doesn’t wait to see what Draco says in return. Instead he slips from the bed, grabs a towel that Draco laid out earlier, and heads into the bathroom. He needs some time to think, and to process, and lying there in bed with Draco doesn’t help.

Lying there in bed with Draco makes him wonder when they can do it again. And Harry is fairly certain that that way lies madness.

#

Three days later the owl arrives and taps at Harry’s window, one claw incessant and insistent until he opens it to let it in. The owl drops the note it carries and leaves before Harry can offer a response or even a treat.

He picks it up, pausing when he sees Draco’s meticulous script addressing it. He slits the wax slowly, and slips the note free of the envelope.

There are only two words: _I’m pregnant_.

Harry sits down roughly in the chair, breath escaping in a whoosh. Draco’s _pregnant_. With _their_ child. It had seemed so remote not all that long ago, and now he has to face the facts that he is going to be a _father_.

He has to tell his friends. Somehow, he has to figure out how to explain this strange deal that he’s made. But not yet. Not until they’ve had more time, until they figure out how it will work. Until Harry knows what the rules are, what will happen.

For now, they’ll just go on as they have been.

Nothing’s changed.

#

When Draco reminds him after a week that he still has one more sitting before the portrait is complete, Harry makes time for it right away, avoiding a lunch with Hermione in favor of sitting still for an hour or three listening to Draco murmur to himself.

There is a moment’s awkwardness when Draco opens the door himself, rather than letting the house elf get it, and Harry is struck with the odd urge to kiss him hello.

They’ve never been kissing friends before, but Harry’s gaze falls to Draco’s lips, and he remembers the taste of him. The hunger and the response, and the small whimpering moan. Harry swallows hard and fights against a flush of warmth before he dares to meet Draco’s eyes. 

“So.” He shrugs out of his outer cloak and hands it to the waiting elf. “You think it’ll be done today? Can I see it?”

Draco is still as a statue, hands hanging by his sides, fingers lightly fisted as he looks at Harry. His pointed chin is tilted slightly up, his grey eyes hooded. He makes a small sniff, then nods sharply. “When it’s done, you may see it,” he allows. “Sit.”

Harry arranges himself in the seat, letting the tension loose once Draco nods that he is seated correctly. “Can you still do magic while pregnant?” Harry is curious. “I’ve read that the drain of a magical pregnancy can be terrible, and a risk to both father and child.”

Draco flinches. “I’m not endangering your child, Potter,” he says dryly. “I assure you, he or she will be well cared for during their stay in my makeshift womb.”

Harry tries to read the body language, the way Draco won’t meet his eyes now, and the tension he can see lining his carriage, keeping his back ramrod straight. Regret, he decides. “I’m sorry.”

“What for _now_?” Draco gives him a dark look over the edge of the easel. “For taking nine months out of my life? For requiring that I will have to stop painting magically after the first trimester is done? For destroying my perfect figure, and for leaving new scars on my skin? Or is it, perhaps, that you regret that you will have to put up with me in your house, and that you regret mixing your bloodlines with mine?”

“What?” Harry can’t think what to say next, his mouth hanging open. “I don’t… I’m not the one with regrets, Malfoy. You’re the one—”

“You’re an idiot, Potter.” Draco rolls his eyes and purses his lips before jabbing a paintbrush in Harry’s direction. “Now sit silently and let me finish. This is the most complicated part.”

Harry manages to stay silent for a half hour before his legs cramp and his skin itches and he needs to say something into the stillness that weighs heavily on the room. This doesn’t feel _right_. It feels as if something broke between himself and Draco, and he can’t stand that, not after having spent all this time as friends.

“I’ve been thinking,” Harry begins. He waits for the small _mm-hm_ that means that Draco is listening. “We should talk about how we’ll tell Hermione and Ron. And your friends as well, of course, but I haven’t been able to figure out how, exactly. We should be on the same page, so we don’t say anything the other one doesn’t want—Draco?” He stops as he sees Draco staring at him, eyes wide and skin pale, the paintbrush hanging from his fingertips. “Or we don’t have to tell them at all, not yet. Or ever, if you’d rather, but if you’re going to claim this child as your heir—”

“Merlin’s balls,” Draco mutters. He sets the brush down, wiping his fingers on his smock. “You haven’t told Granger yet because you can’t figure out _how_?”

“It’s a delicate subject,” Harry protests. “It’s not every day that a bloke lets himself be knocked up by his best mate just so they’ve both got a child. And remember, they don’t even know…”

“…You’re bent, I know.” Draco gestures and a stool flies over just in time for him to sit. “I should have thought of it that way.”

“We’re not having the same conversation, are we?” Harry asks slowly.

Draco shakes his head. “I ran into Granger at the Ministry the other day. She didn’t even know I was painting your portrait, and was surprised that I’d stopped in to inspect the space where it will hang. I…” Faint pink stains his skin across his cheeks. “I’m rather embarrassed to state that I fell ill while in her company. She expressed concern, and I explained that it is simply a side effect of the pregnancy and will likely be fading after the first few months.”

“You told her about—”

Draco’s expression is dark. “Of course not, Potter. I realized very quickly that she had no idea of our plan, and while she offered her congratulations and her curiosity as to the other father, I did not satisfy her with an answer.” He sniffs. “But I realized that you hadn’t told her, and that you had yet to tell Weasley. This is the most important event in your life since the end of the war, and you haven’t mentioned it to your best friends.”

“You don’t regret being pregnant,” Harry realizes. “You’re angry that I haven’t shouted it from the rooftops.” It’s such a strange realization, the opposite of what he might have expected. “You _want_ me to tell Hermione and Ron.”

“I want you to be pleased,” Draco says.

There’s more to it, Harry’s sure of it. He can see the walls forming, the way ice slips into those eyes like a blockade against his thoughts. “Are you almost done?”

Draco glances at the canvas. “Very close, actually, yes.”

“Finish it. I’ll be quiet, I promise.”

There is hesitation in the way Draco lifts the brush, a carefulness in the way he touches it to the canvas. But Harry remains silent and tries to remain at ease, and Draco finds his fugue again, slipping into wherever his mind goes when he paints.

And Harry lets him go. He needs the time to think.

#

“Do you want to see it?” Draco shrugs out of his smock, sending it to a bin that the house elf will empty later for laundry. He begins to pack his paints away neatly while Harry stands and stretches.

“I’d like to, yes.” Harry approaches slowly, as if Draco might yet change his mind. He is nervous what he might see, because this is the painting of Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived and more importantly, the Boy Who Died And Returned. This is Harry Potter, the Hero. The Saviour. He knows what is expected of this portrait, and how important it is to the Ministry.

But what Draco has painted is only Harry himself, smiling slightly, a little awkward and uncomfortable, but at the same time, at ease, as if he might speak at any moment. There is nothing pretentious about the image, nothing that might turn a person away. It is entirely respectable, but also the sort of portrait a child might feel comfortable approaching for a simple conversation.

“It’s me.”

“Of course, you idiot, what else would I have painted?” Draco arches one eyebrow at him. “There is a reason you came to me. You asked for a portrait of yourself, and that is what I have done. The Ministry will be satisfied, and some time, far in the future, it will embody _you_. And you will be exactly as you have always been.”

“An idiot who somehow saved the world?” Harry asks.

Draco shakes his head. “A boy who made the world fall in love with a legend, but who was only a man, and yet he saved the world anyway, because he knew no one else would. A boy with heart, and with courage, and who deserves to be seen as he is, not as the public wishes him to be.”

Something suspiciously damp pricks the corners of his eyes, and Harry turns so that Draco won’t see. “You made me human.”

Draco snorts in reply. “You _are_ merely human. Anyone who doesn’t recognize that is even more of an idiot than you are.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s only a portrait.”

“No, it’s not.” Harry takes a careful step closer to Draco. “You’re right, I’m an idiot. I’ve been going off about blokes who see a hero instead of a human, about how I’m alone, and everything I want, and you’ve _given_ me everything I want without asking for anything, and I’m an _idiot_ because I’m just figuring out what I actually want.”

Draco blinks without saying a word, and Harry has that urge again… that memory of what it felt like to kiss him when they had sex, what it felt like to taste him. Kissing hadn’t been planned, but it’s the hardest thing to let go of.

He has to do it again.

He palms the nape of Draco’s neck, and he moves slowly, giving him a chance to get away. Just in case. Because nothing’s different between them, but at the same time, _everything_ has changed. When Harry’s lips brush Draco’s, he feels the sigh, catches the soft exhalation with his mouth, breathing him in. His tongue slips out, touching, asking, and when Draco’s mouth opens, he presses in, teasing lightly as his eyes close. All he wants is this right now, nothing more, nothing less.

Draco’s hand falls to his hip, and they are linked, one hand touching the other, mouth to mouth. When Harry finally pulls back, Draco’s brows are furrowed. “Was there a point to that, Potter?”

“You can’t sound arsed off at me when your lips are kissed red,” Harry says, smirking slightly. “And yes. I’m trying to point out that not only am I an idiot, but I’m blind. I’ve been looking all over London for a bent bloke who doesn’t just want to fuck the hero Harry Potter. For someone who would be a friend and a lover. For someone who’d be more than willing to put me in my place rather than worship the ground I walk on. And somehow I’ve missed the fact that he’s been standing right in front of me the entire time. Although given what he’s said before, I’m worried that I might be too late.”

It only occurs to Harry as he’s talking that he has _forgotten_ something that Draco said, and the words spill out before he can full think through everything.

Draco huffs a sigh. “And why would you be too late? Other than the fact that most people do decide to date before they get pregnant together, of course.”

“You’re in love with someone else.” When Draco’s brow furrows in confusion, Harry continues quickly. “You said you’d do anything for the person you love. That you understand why Snape was so insistent on taking care of me, because he’d loved my mother so much. That _you_ would do the same.”

“Such as getting pregnant with their child, when I knew there would be nothing in it except a broken heart?” Draco arches both eyebrows.

There is no air left in the room to breathe, his chest aching as if he’s been hit by a stunning spell. “Oh.” Harry takes a step back, then takes a step forward again, both hands reaching up to frame Draco’s face. “ _Oh_.”

He leans in to kiss him slowly. Gently. Trying out the taste before he deepens it, then letting Draco control where it goes after that. Now that it isn’t about procreation, or about a goal, he can luxuriate in the feel of it, of knowing that one of his best friends is here and that this has a chance. It isn’t sex. And he isn’t sure if it’s love yet on his part, but he suspects it could be. If he lets it be.

“Now what?” Draco asks when the kiss breaks.

“I was supposed to have lunch with Hermione today, but I came here instead,” Harry says, thinking through the plan only moments before he speaks the words. “We ought to owl her. Tell her to come over and see the portrait. And… and let her know you’re not a single father that’s being taken advantage of by some bloke.” He smiles wryly. “Or well, that the bloke who’s taking advantage of you is well aware of how much it means.”

Draco purses his lips. “And what has inspired this change of heart?”

“You’ve made my life better,” Harry says simply. “As my friend, as the person who’s offered to make a family with me, as… I don’t know what we’ll be going forward, but as _that_ , too. You see me as _me_. Not the boy who obsessed over you for years, not the hero, you just see _me_. You look past everything else, and you’re one of the very few who do. And I don’t mind telling everyone how much I need you in my life.”

One eyebrow tilts up. “Whatever we are, going forward?”

“Whatever we become, yes. Parents at the least,” Harry says. “We’ve got time to get the rest sorted.”

“Such as an actual date?”

Harry laughs, while Draco smirks. “After Hermione leaves, I’ll take you out for coffee. It’s a traditional beginning,” Harry says. “I’m pretty sure we’ll manage a few more before the baby’s born.”

Draco sighs. “It’s not shouting from the rooftops, but I suppose it will have to do.”

It’s more than Harry ever thought he’d have. “Give it time, Draco. I think we’ll manage quite well.”

Draco’s mouth brushes his as he murmurs, “Yes, Harry. I think we will.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can leave a comment here or [on Livejournal](http://hd-erised.livejournal.com/7340.html).


End file.
